History

Little known ...

Historic Facts from the East Hampton Town Crier

Perhaps you think that East Hampton was put on the map by potato field-chateaux-building-yuppies
from New York. Well, in the tabloids, perhaps. But the real face of East
Hampton is fortunately more substantial, in fact, it's as much the cradle
of American civilization as Virginia. We may not have a Monticello, but
we do have our Common Whipper, our Lord of the Manor, a felonious Christmas,
a witch, possibly Captain Kidd's treasure, the very first American woman
on the scene of the Gold Rush and the first cattle ranch in the United States.

Click each title below to expand its paragraph.

Punishments
could be rather harsh in the early history of East Hampton. In 1725,
Dick Syme was elected Common Whipper for East Hampton, and was paid
3 shillings for each person whipped. In 1651 Anne Edwards was ordered
to pay a fine of 3 pounds for the contempt of a warrant, and have
her tongue in a cleft stick. In the same year it was ordered that
Samuel Turner "shall, within the space of a fortnight either join
a family, become a servant to a man or leave the town."

Ebenezer
Dayton, a peddler from Connecticut came to East Hampton in 1798. He
was ordered to stay at The Ordinary, an inn, for several days, but
instead went to church the next day and sat in the first pew. Guess
what? He had the measles, a highly contagious disease in 1798. He
was ordered to leave town immediately, but was overtaken by 4 young
men, brought back to town ridden on a rail, had his hair cut off,
and finally was dunked in Town Pond. 100 people in the town contracted
the measles. What did Mr. Dayton do? In keeping with East Hampton
tradition, he sued and was awarded damages of $1000. His lawyer was
Aaron Burr who in 1800 was elected Vice-President to Thomas Jefferson;
and who; a few years later killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel

In the
latter part of the 19th century, there was much wrangling and confusion
among the various Boards of the East Hampton Town Trustees. Measures
adopted by one Board of Trustees were sometimes rescinded by a subsequent
Board. The 1884 Board began to investigate and prosecute all illegal
and improper proceedings of the Board of Trustees of the years 1882
and 1883. On April 11, 1853 the newly elected East Hampton Town Trustees
were to meet at the Town House, but the building was locked and the
key had not been turned over to them by the previous Trustees. The
meeting was then held at the home of Thomas T. Parsons.

The first
3 houses to be built in Montauk were appropriately named First House,
Second House and Third House. These houses were used by the men who
tended the cattle, sheep and horses while they were pasturing in Montauk.
First House was located at the foot of Hither Hill and burned down
in 1909. Second House, still standing is located at the entrance to
the present Montauk Village. This is where the sheep were kept. Third
House is located on the outskirts of the present Montauk State Park.
The cattle and horses were kept here and it was the site of the annual
roundup before the cattle, sheep and horses returned to East Hampton
in the fall.

The depression
which followed the stock market crash of October 1929 apparently took
a while to sink into the heads of some Sag Harbor and East Hampton
businessmen. In March of 1931 they proposed a $45 million dollar bond
issue be floated to build bridges from North Haven to Shelter Island
and from Shelter Island to East Marion (on the North Fork) to "help
the unemployment situation." The East Hampton Town Board favored the
proposal by a vote of 4-2. And we're still waiting for the bridges.

Dr. Abel
Huntington, a doctor in East Hampton for over 60 years until his death
in 1858 was a successful surgeon and also introduced a new smallpox
vaccine in 1800. Dr. Huntington served as a coroner of Suffolk County,
a Presidential Elector, a member of Congress, a member of the State
Senate and was the East Hampton Town Supervisor for 5 years.

For many
years since its founding, East Hampton's Main Street (also called
Town Street) has been as wide as it is today due to the annual cattle
and sheep drives to Montauk. The animals from East Hampton and surrounding
areas were driven to Montauk in the early spring to pasture and returned
in late fall. At one time, Main Street was all grass with wagon ruts
on either side. These drives continued until the early part of the
20th century. At the time of the Civil War there were said to be more
animals than people on Main Street. (NB. Some would argue the same
is true today)

The Old
Dominy House, built in 1716, stood across from the present IGA store
on North Main Street in East Hampton. The Dominys were East Hampton's
talented clockmakers, furniture makers and millwrights. Their home
contained the clock shop and the furniture shop. Oscar Brill bought
the house and offered it to the Village for $6000 if the Village would
fix the building and use it as a museum for the people of East Hampton.
The mayor of East Hampton wrote a letter to the East Hampton Star
asking for donations. The letter was sent in December 1941. When the
Second World War broke out, everyone forgot about the Dominy House
and it was torn down in 1946. Many of the Dominy's tools and their
reconstructed clockmaking and furniture making shops are now located
at the Winterthur Museum in Delaware. The Dominy family's windmills
are among the finest in the area.

Daniel
Fairfield was probably East Hampton's first juvenile delinquent (what
a quaint term today!) First, he and three others were arrested for
exposing themselves in public and performing other immoral acts. Young
Mr. Fairfield received a public whipping for this offense (N.B. Probably
netting the Whipper 3 Shillings!) Later, he entered the schoolhouse
of teacher Charles Barnes and announced that he could beat up all
the children. When subsequently thrown out of the school by the teacher,
he returned to the door and shouted profanities. Finally, Mr. Fairfield
was brought to court by The Reverend Dr. Thomas James because he had
attempted to seduce his daughter and his maid.

In 1911
Frederic and Almy Galatin agreed to sell the town of East Hampton
22 ½ acres of land at Three Mile Harbor for $1 dollar on the following
conditions: 1. The land would be used as a public park for the town
people for ever 2. The name of the park would be Maidstone Park 3.
If the park ceased to exist or the land used for any other purpose
then a public park, the land would revert back to the Gallatin family
or their heirs. The proposition past at a special election, 242 for
and 8 against.

(well,
maybe a reprieve) The town election of November 7, 1923 found the
voters in a bad mood. The proposition to appropriate $8,000 for mosquito
exterminators was lost, sidewalk improvement for Amagansett was defeated
by 20 votes, a proposition to buy Northwest for a forest reservation
at the cost of not more than $20 an acre failed by 313 votes. The
land was later sold for more than 50 times the initial cost. Even
the popular Maidstone Park failed to get a $1,000 appropriation for
extra boathouses and other improvements.

On September
20, 1970 the Free Life, a balloon using both helium and hot air took
off from George Sid Miller's pasture on Fireplace Road in Springs.
The 3 passengers, Rod Anderson, Pam Brown and Malcolm Brighton were
attempting to become the first people to cross the Atlantic Ocean
in a hot air balloon. The 3 balloonists were helped mightily in their
efforts by the people of Springs and East Hampton. About 500 miles
Southwest of Newfoundland, the Free Life went down in heavy seas caused
by a sea squall. The craft and crew vanished without a trace.

In 1659,
the Massachussetts General Court declared the celebration of Christmas
to be a criminal offense. The Puritans were attempting to suppress
the excesses of the season which included rowdy public displays of
eating and drinking, mockery of established authority, aggressive
begging and boisterous invasions.

In August
1922 the Amagansett Fire Dept. was formed with 43 members. The department
was divided into 3 companies; chemical company #1, Hook & Ladder Company
#2 and Bucket Brigade Company #3. E Vivian Parsons was appointed First
Assistant Chief. In October of 1922, the Reverend Clarence Scoville,
pastor of the Amagansett Presbyterian Church was admitted to membership
in the department. He was assigned to the bucket brigade.

There
was a small frame building on the west side of 3 Mile Harbor Road
built in 1852 in the settlement known as Freetown. The building was
called St.Mathews Chapel and was used by the White African American
and Indian communities in the Freetown area. The chapel was later
used by the members of St. Lukes's parish and was the first building
used by the people who eventually formed Calvary Baptist Church. The
building had wooden floors, a bell in the steeple, a pot bellied stove
in the back and a stained glass window behind the altar. The building
was moved in 1976 to be used as as chapel for mariners at Maindstone
Boatyard (now East Hampton Point). It is still there today.

In 1870
the LIRR tracks stopped at Bridgehampton on the south shore. However,
there were 5 miles of tracks between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor
on which rode a small steam locomotive and 2 wooden cars. It took
the train about 12 minutes to travel the 5 miles. In 1927, a gasoline
powered rail car was substituted for the steam locomotive. Later,
a motor car was built to accommodate 40 passengers and run by a motorman
and conductor was added to the line. It was called the Toonerville
Trolley. When the Montauk Extension was opened in 1895, the line to
Sag Harbor was relegated to secondary status. The line closed down
on May 3 1939.

An early
visitor to Japan through Sag Harbor whaling design was Ronald McDonald,
seaman of the ship Plymouth, owned by Cook and Green of Sag Harbor.
In June of 1848 he received his discharge and was given a whale boat
furnished with books and provisions and left his ship off the coast
of Japan to visit the forbidden islands. He was captured and imprisoned.
He taught some of the Japanese the English language but they were
anxious to get rid of him and he was taken away by the US Warship
Preble in 1849.

The first
newspaper press on Long Island was supposedly established at Sag Harbor
in 1791 by David Frothingham. It was called Long Island Herald. Among
the early imprints were a sermon on lying and rules and regulations
by Lyman Beecher, East Hampton's 4th minister, a sermon on a remedy
for dueling by Lyman Beecher and a sermon on the occasion of the death
of Miss Mary Hill who died of consumption at the age of 26. The Long
Island Herald went out of business in 1798.

A turnpike
road was built in the 1840's to connect East Hampton and Sag Harbor.
After 60 years of charging tolls at the toll house that stood opposite
the Jewish Cemetery the road became so bad that people refused to
pay to use it. On September 23, 1905 the franchise was released. The
toll house on the East Hampton - Sag Harbor Turnpike burned to the
ground on June 20, 1905. Sag Harbor's toll gates were the last two
to be removed in the State of New York.

Prentice
Mulford was described as the strangest of men. He envisioned the airplane
and radio and prophesized mental telepathy and practiced it. He was
born in Sag Harbor in 1834 but at 22 Prentice Mulford headed for California
and made his fortune not from gold but by his interesting and imaginative
articles and books. In 1865 he converted to spiritualism and lived
in an old whaleboat cruising San Francisco Bay. After returning from
a trip abroad, Prentice Mulford lived for the next 17 years as a hermit
in the swamps of Passaic, New Jersey. It was there he wrote some of
his finest works on spiritualism including his The White Cross Library
dealing in the topic Thought Currents and How to Use Them. At age
57, Mulford decided to return to Sag Harbor and write about Long Island
after the Gold Rush but he died in his boat en route. After 30 years
in an unmarked grave, Mulford's body was taken to Oakland Cemetery
in Sag Harbor where a large stone was placed on his grave with these
words, "Thoughts are Things".

The Ramblers,
a woman's organization, developed out of a small reading group that
began at the home of Mrs. Florence Osborne in East Hampton on January
22 1901. The club was to study literature, in particular that which
treated travel in our own and foreign countries. As they would be
"rambling", through various countries of the globe in search of knowledge
and amusement the group decide to name itself The Ramblers. This group
of women continues to meet today.

Polly
Sweet was born in Sag Harbor in 1815 and immediately upon getting
married in 1835 convinced her husband that fame and fortune awaited
them in California. Starting out by wagon they traveled to Albany,
across New York State to Buffalo and by packet-ship to Chicago. she
eventually crossed the Rocky Mountains through Colorado, Utah, Nevada
and reached Sutters Fort in California in 1845. Polly Sweet was the
first woman from New York State to cross the Great Plains to the Pacific
coast by prairie wagon. When gold was discovered in 1848 in Central
California Polly Sweet became the first American woman at the scene
of discovery.

Sineus
Edwards lived in Springs on Fireplace Road. He owned a coasting ship
called The Florian and made numerous trips to New England, upstate
New York and western Long Island. Sineus Edwards carried stones, lumber,
shingles and brick to David Dimon Parsons in 1844 to build the store
which has become the Springs General Store. Mr. Edwards also sailed
all the way from Albany with the bell for the new Springs Chapel.
Capt. Edwards left this note upon his death: "I hereby give Baldwin
C. Talmage $150 when I am done with it. I want you to pay back doctor's
bills and funeral expenses and what remains take for yourself. Don't
get anything expensive to lay this old body away."

Early
in the 1930's, Clean Dodge, who was a swimming instructor at Fireplace
Lodge Camp in Springs, swam from Fireplace Point to Gardiner's island
in two hours. He was accompanied by Richard Newcomb and Jack McGreevy
in a small boat. The first person of the Fireplace Lodge staff to
accomplish this feat was another swimming instructor named Ozzie Nelson
who later became a radio star and orchestra leader and who appeared
on the hit 1950's television show Ozzie & Harriet. Cleon Dodge beat
Ozzie Nelson's record by 30 minutes.